Ritchie Industries produces livestock watering tanks that are insulated, heated, and free flowing to supply continuous fresh water to livestock. The company’s products are suitable for beef and dairy cattle, hogs, horses, sheep, goats, and exotic livestock. Products range from a single stall waterer to fountains that accommodate 500 head of cattle. Some products are built to attach to a stall or fence line while others are free standing.

Thomas Ritchie, an Iowa farmer, invented an automatic animal watering system in 1921 for the purpose of keeping his own livestock supplied with fresh water. His invention became popular among the farmers in the area, so he patented the concept and sold it to farmers around the state. C. D. Wilson, Sr. purchased the business in 1943 and moved it to Conrad, Iowa. In 2004, Clifford D. Wilson, Jr. sold the Company to the Ritchie Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).

Exporting represents over 22 percent of Ritchie’s sales, with products being exported to Canada, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. Most of the sales to Canada, Europe and Asia are for larger units that are used in cattle and dairy operations. Exports  are responsible for creating 17 jobs through exporting.

In recognition of the small business community’s contributions to the American economy and society, the President of the United States designates one week each year as National Small Business Week. Scheduled for the week of April 30th this year, Small Business Week 2023 will honor the more than 30 million small businesses in America.

| Member since 2021

The direct forgiveness portal is open to borrowers with loans of $150,000 or lower.

This is a departure from the Trump administration’s policy of having banks act as the go-between for the SBA and borrowers. The SBA designed the offering to streamline the process and take pressure off smaller lenders.

The move comes as the agency seeks to wind down the COVID-19 rescue program. There are about 7.1 million PPP loans that remain outstanding and about 6 million are for $150,000 or less.

Eligible borrowers will receive an email from the SBA with a link to the online portal, said the SBA’s Patrick Kelley. The application for forgiveness should take less than 10 minutes to complete, Kelley said. The SBA has created a customer service line to answer borrower questions.

Banks responsible for originating the PPP loans must opt into direct forgiveness before their borrowers can use the SBA’s online platform, which could potentially limit the initiative’s reach.

The SBA portal begins accepting applications for forgiveness Wednesday, Aug. 4.

Source: Wall Street Journal

The closure marked the end of a $961 billion emergency effort that helped millions of small businesses survive the pandemic but was dogged by fraud claims and criticism that it didn’t reach the neediest businesses.

The program had been scheduled to end Memorial Day, but the Small Business Administration on Friday said in a notice to lenders that “due to the high volume of originations today, the portal will be closing for new originations” that day.

The SBA as of May 23 had approved 11.6 million PPP loans totaling roughly $796 billion across the program’s first round, from April to August last year, and its second round, which began in January. Banks and other lenders issued the loans, which the SBA guaranteed.

After the program’s general funding was exhausted in May, funds remained only for certain community lenders. The SBA said Friday that these lenders submitted 125,000 loan requests in the preceding 24 hours.

The agency will have another month to process loan applications that were already submitted. The SBA also has thousands of pending requests for loan forgiveness. Millions more will likely follow.

Created by the $2 trillion CARES Act that became law in March 2020, the PPP offered coronavirus aid in the form of loans that could be forgiven provided recipients used the funds to retain workers and on other allowable expenses.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last July estimated the program had increased employment in the U.S. by about 2.3 million jobs through the first week of June 2020. At that time, the SBA reported that it had approved about 4.5 million loans totaling $511 billion.

Source: Wall Street Journal